COLOURS AND PATTERNS OF MAMMALS 85 



of dark rings (Plate III, p. 62). Although pumas are nearly uni- 

 formly coloured, tawny-brown in winter and redder brown in 

 spring, their cubs are vividly marked with black, stripes and spots 

 on the face, a broad band on each side of the face, spots on the 

 legs and under- parts, and rings on the tail. Caracals, until they 

 shed their puppy coat when they are about six months old, are very 

 brightly spotted on the under surface, whilst lynxes, which are 

 greyish- brown in their adult summer coats, are profusely spotted 

 with black when they are young. 



The young of these cats are so carefully hidden, and so zealously 

 guarded by the mother who is more ferocious in defence of her 

 cubs than the females of other species that they have little need 

 of the protection that concealment might give. I do not doubt but 

 that a spotted coat serves as a protection, partly by breaking up the 

 outline, and still more in the case of those animals that live in the 

 forest and crouch for their prey at the edges of open glades, or 

 lie along the branches of trees where their marks would blend with 

 the dappled disks of light and patches of shadow formed as the 

 sunlight filters through the foliage. It is more than probable 

 that the spotting of adult jaguars and leopards, servals and cheetahs, 

 and the various spots, stripes and blotches of the smaller cats are 

 the patterns of the young, retained and made more vivid by natural 

 selection. It is usual to see a relation between the vertical shadows 

 thrown by reeds and tall grasses and the striping of the tiger, and it 

 is a fair supposition that the coat of that splendid cat is a still further 

 modification of a primitively spotted livery. The self colour of 

 lions, pumas, caracals and lynxes has unquestionably come about 

 by the obliteration of the spots found in the young, and in adult 

 life traces of spots remain in varying degrees, but most strongly on 

 the under surface and on the legs where they are least conspicuous. 

 It seems certain that the spotted skin of young cats, like that of 

 many other animals to which we shall come later, is a natural growth 

 pattern which is retained in adult life where it is useful, or accentu- 

 ated by transformation into stripes, or obliterated to a self colour. 



The small carnivores, such as civets, genets and linsangs, bintu- 

 rongs, ichneumons and mungooses, show a similar general set of 

 patterns. In almost any group, some are spotted, others are 

 striped, whilst in a few of the adults the coloration is nearly uniform 

 except for the usual counter-shading, and it is not difficult to see a 

 general relationship between the kind of coloration and the nature 

 of the ground in which the animals are habitually found. In all 



